


it's nice (to see you again)

by EtuBrutus



Category: The Tarot Sequence - K.D. Edwards
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Max-centric, No Slash, Post-Canon, i love this child, max/happiness, what do you do when you don't know who you are? come along for the ride
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:08:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtuBrutus/pseuds/EtuBrutus
Summary: Quinn says, ‘We’re family,’ and for a minute, Max stops breathing.
Relationships: Quinn Saint Nicholas & Matthias "Max" Saint Valentine
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	it's nice (to see you again)

Quinn says, ‘We’re family,’ and for a minute, Max stops breathing.

Quinn proceeds to pester Brand for the last slice of pizza, ‘ - which means you’ve got to share,’ - which the man reluctantly hands over, with a, ‘You’re a brat.’

Max is sitting on the edge of the couch in one of the lounges, and so are a handful of Rune’s courtiers - _family,_ he corrects. There’s a pleasant hum of noise, the usual conversation, nothing that bombards his ears, and up until Quinn used _that_ word, he’d been relaxed. 

There’s nothing… untrue about the statement. Quinn doesn’t take well to lying, Max knows, and calling the Sun Court a ‘family’ shouldn’t phase him, it’s practically a given, with the things they’ve been through in the past year. 

But Quinn says it so _easily,_ like it’s nothing, like it’s a given. 

Maybe for him, it is. Max thinks back, a year before this, how he’d been flung to Half-House in some last-ditch attempt by Elena to win whatever game she thought she’d been playing. He’d never even set foot outside the Heart Palace before then. The gates had always been closed, until then 

(That’s not true. You can’t help but know it’s untrue, because lies are like a whistle for fae ears, unavoidable, unignorable. You’d never really stepped across the old gates, or walked out of there, just been magicked to Rune and Brand like a chess-piece on the Arcana board. You might not be a Lovers anymore, but that’s only because _nobody_ is a Lovers anymore.)

What had family been, before that?

Max doesn’t need help remembering. (He needs help _forgetting._ ) Courtiers in the corridors, touching and flirting easily, some who’d been there since he was a child, who’d gotten greyer hairs but remained as indifferent as ever. Aloysius. Rebekkah. Helga. Miriam. 

Saint Valentine. Saint Valentine. Saint Valentine. 

Parents he didn’t know. A grandmother. Cousins. Uncle - 

(You can’t think of the man without feeling fire and tension in your muscles, body hardwired to brace for a burn -)

The lounge they’re sitting in has the barebones of a wall that leads to an open pavilion, which is lit up like every other area in the Sun Palace. It is lit up, from the sun, in the sky. It is not canopied with sigil-strengthened glass, like the pavilions from Max’s old court. It is different. The layout may look exactly the same, but it is _different._

Max dislikes how often he’s had to look for differences in-between courts after they all moved here. It’s stupid, because the Lovers Court is _gone,_ it’s burnt to the ground, and he’s here now, safe, but Matthias has always had too good of a memory. 

He does not miss it. Quinn and Brand consider each other, consider _him_ family, and that brings him comfort because _they_ are safe, but his feelings for the people close to him don’t necessarily extend to their surroundings. He does not miss the Heart Palace.

(You don’t _not_ miss the Heart Palace.)

The Heart Palace was a glorified birdcage, where he’d spent the first _seventeen years of his life,_ when he’d thought the entire world was going to be four wings of a building and a gate. 

(You knew the Lovers Court. It was familiar. You miss the familiarity. You miss -)

(Max tries forgetting, all of it, tries imagining how he’d managed to _breathe,_ how going back now would be suffocation, would break his newly-grown bones and collapse his lungs into something compact enough to fit into a life he’d lived as long as he could remember.)

He’s pulled out of his reverie when Brand snorts, rolling his eyes at Quinn, who’s just noticed the other pizza box the man had hidden behind his seat and is now protesting. Quinn gives up protesting, and lays back on the couch, mock-wounded, saying, ‘Matthias, avenge me, for I have been slain by the claws of betrayal,’ and the three of them begin to laugh without meaning to. 

It’s liberating, being near them all. Max can breathe easier than before, with them. 

  
  


Before this, ‘family’ had meant something else. (He’d figured the difference out the moment he’d seen Queenie and Brand interact at half-house.)

‘Family’ had been what their court was, everyone connected by their initials, ‘S.V’ and more often than not, by their blood. Courtiers in corridors leering at each other like cats on a sinking liferaft, in it together but prepared to be the last one standing. 

It was why marital alliances were made, why their Arcanum was so powerful to begin with, because the Lovers had nothing but relationships and lust and amorous intimacy in New Atlantis and they’d built a _stronghold_ with it. 

Family was something of a by-product of that. It wasn’t romanticised, it was just the result of breeding and consummation, the brittle bare-bones of the Lovers’ power. When all else failed in a union, the word ‘family’ was thrown in, giving the case a little more nobility than just ‘sex’ or ‘betrothed.’

Matthias had heard the word thrown around casually, growing up. It had the same weight as ‘infrastructure’ or ‘status’ - important, probably, but in a detached, economic way. He hadn’t known it was something you were meant to have, to be born into, until much later. 

He wonders what he’d missed out on.

  
  
  
  


One of the first things Max had done in the Sun Palace was walk the length of every corridor inside. To memorise the paths and scope out the place they’d be living in. It was always something he’d done, a constant in the tumultuous mesocosmic world that was New Atlantis. 

He’d done the same at Half-House, the moment he’d realised that Rune and Brand, the strange gallivanting heirs-turned-detectives-turned-guardians were under contract to keep his custody. Max still remembers it, could navigate it blind at this point. Familiarity was always better than any alternatives. 

(You’d learnt that the hard way.)

The corridors are stone, mostly, with a good amount of sandstone and marble accents. None of it is metal, which is a relief. Rune had the place cleaned thoroughly, though chose to keep the moss and vines near the pavilions, probably to give the long-abandoned compound a sense of life. There were many indoor plants scattered through the buildings, simple ones that would flourish anywhere, and it had brought Max an odd sense of comfort.

Something that felt like familiarity, despite how he’d never lived anywhere with houseplants before. Maybe it was a fae thing, Max didn’t know.

The corridors here are almost always quiet. After all, there’s barely a dozen people to fill up the compound - there aren’t any staff yet (except Queenie, who does _not_ count) but Max is sure the ‘adults’ will eventually cave in to manage upkeep. For now, Max likes the quiet. It’s another difference between Before and now, something else that separates the **palace** from where he used to live. 

The corridors are quiet, but they feel alive. His hold on his memory slips - 

(The Lovers’ Court had been _alive,_ too, Hungrily alive, writhing with want like a thirsty animal, feral instinctive. People coming into the gates and never leaving, corridors filled with constant whispers, lovers fighting or fucking each other, the words _marital alliance._ It had been a place that took and took and _took_ and would never stop - )

\- but the Sun Palace is a different kind, a quieter, more stable kind. Max had leaned against a low stone wall, letting his breathing and pulse slow to what was normal for him. He’d closed his eyes, and stood stock-still, because he didn’t _have_ to act more human here to blend in. (He still _did,_ but he didn’t have to.)

The Sun Palace was large, and alive, and a behemoth of a building that would always remind him of where he’d grown up. But he’d never have to compress himself, change himself to live here.

(You don’t even know who you are, you were _defined_ by what Elena and Uncle thought of you, you don’t - )

The Sun Palace was large enough for him to exist in. It was also small and alive enough for him to _know,_ to memorise, eventually. That would have to be enough.

  
  
  
  


Max gets into the rough habit of carrying the more interesting textbooks around while he walks the corridors, and choosing a place to sit while reading. It’s different every time, sometimes a portico, other times a pavilion. There’s never much shade, since it’s the ‘ _Sun’ Palace_ and that means the sun has the fucking right to light up every nook and cranny available. He doesn’t get sunburned, nor do the Dawncreeks, though Queenie, Quinn and Addam have taken to carrying umbrellas around. ( ‘it’s _not_ a parasol, Max!’)

Max likes reading for school - it’s a novel experience, yes, but the books _are_ interesting, better than the shit he’d been taught Before, and he’s found that his memorisation skills make learning easy. Biology’s his favourite so far - he already knew _how_ the body worked, because he was a shapeshifter, of course he knew what _that_ bone did and where the strongest muscles were - though the rest are mostly just a formality. 

The _other_ reason he likes reading in the corridors is because he doesn’t need to _move._ As in, he doesn’t need to keep pretending to shift in his seat, or blink more than he wants to. He can slow his pulse, his lungs, to normal. Max does small things that make him look more human, less of a threat, less _fae,_ and while it’s not uncomfortable anymore, after all these years, it’s a reprieve to not have to do it at all when on his own. 

He hadn’t ever really been alone, Before. Hadn’t trusted the feeling, whenever he’d gotten privacy. But now the corridors are quiet and safe, and he can. 

Brand has most definitely noticed how Max walks around on his own, when he’s not hanging around with Quinn or Queenie or the younger Dawncreeks, sometimes. The man doesn’t say anything about it, though. It’s… none of his business. Brand respects everyone’s privacy, as long as it isn’t a threat. That’s something Max understands, and finds relief in, because it makes Brand predictable, and predictability is familiarity, and that’s the same thing as comfort, for him. 

He finds Layne, sitting on a staircase. The first thing that catches his eye is how the area’s enveloped in shadows. It’s odd, because shadows aren’t usually _this_ prominent here, but then he sees Layne, who’s probably not noticed Max yet, because he hasn’t been making unnecessarily audible footsteps like he usually does for the rest of Rune’s… family.

Max hurriedly assembles his features into what he usually shows people - more human-ish features, rounded ears, softer eyes. He lets his feet _thud_ against the warm stone floor, and clears his throat for good measure. 

Layne Dawncreek looks down at him, surprised. They’re a good few feet above Max’s eye-level, and the scion blinks a few times. Of course they do - Max hadn’t expected anyone to be around here, either. 

“Uh, hi.” Layne says.

Max raises his hand, a gesture for ‘hello’ being the best he can do as he tries to increase his heartbeat. Layne nods, and glances away, thankfully. 

The situation shouldn’t be awkward, because they _do_ live together. They’ve both sat in groups with Quinn and Rune and Corrine and the rest of the sun court, and Max has babysat Corbie as well, there _are_ things they have in common. It’s just... neither of them have ever had a conversation with each other. Without anyone else around.

Layne Dawncreek. They’re wearing a dark, baggy hoodie with hair in a braid trailing down their back. The hair reminds him of Kellum Greenwater, or at least Ciaran’s description of him. (Max only knew about Kellum because he had been dreaming, which had been odd, but soon made sense seeing as how Ciaran had gotten drunk and popped into the dreamscape, and rambled about Greenwater's gorgeous hair for a good portion of the night.)

Layne’s skin is tanned, like Corbie’s, and lighter than Anna’s. Max knows who the scion is, and had conversed with their younger siblings ages ago, because Rune had presented patronage to them the moment he’d met them, it was the _smart thing to do,_ being acquainted with them. 

They’d all thought Layne was dead, though. 

Layne hadn’t been dead. They’d just made a few decisions, which, when paired with incredibly shitty luck, had forced them to induce a self-coma for their own survival.

Max hasn’t talked to the scion, much. It hadn’t been an important priority.

(actually, no, when they’d been searching for Layne a few months ago, everything had been upside-down, and nowhere had been safe, and your grandmother had sold you to the Hanged Man, who’d stop at nothing to own what he’d been promised.)

Matthias’ head hurts.

(the ridiculous thing had been that you’d been comfortable, then, hadn’t you? More than now. When lives had been on the line and things were uncertain, you’d felt a sick sense of familiarity, because that’s how it had been all your life, in the Heart Palace - constant alertness, or you’d be screwed over. You’d _liked_ the danger, hadn’t you?)

Layne, who looks at Max again, says, “Do you want to sit?”

No, he does not particularly _want_ to sit, but Max is already walking over, nodding. Ignores the headache, posture normal. It’s been a long time since they’d first met, so delaying a conversation further would be painfully and obviously awkward. He also notes that Layne has more of a right to be here than Max does, with actual blood ties to the court, and any perceived ill-will on Matthias’ end could end badly.

Layne shuffles to their left, as Max climbs the curved staircase, with _audible_ footsteps, perching on the edge of their step.

They sit in silence, not really making eye contact. “Oh,” Layne says, eyes on Max’s textbook, which he’s still holding, “Biology?”

“...Yes.”

“I remember reading _New Atlantis, Vol. 4._ It’s really useful. I mean, it was for me, at least. There’s some great stuff about immolation in there, I’ve... I had my own copy.”

Max’s air of ease becomes less forced. “You’ve read the other volumes?”

“Hell yeah, I _loved_ the subject, aced my senior exams in it.” Layne leans back on their elbows. “It’s why they were so ready to give me an internship without work experience.”

“That’s fortunate.” Max grimaces internally at how rude he sounds, (he cannot _afford_ to seem rude) but Layne just hums and nods. Max nods, too, imitation being his safest bet. 

Another silence stretches on, and Max supposes it’s his turn to break the silence. “What do you think of the Sun Palace?” He debates running away silently when he hears how stilted it sounds. Saints, why can’t he make simple conversation? 

Layne seems to mull it over - they look completely at ease, like they’re not planning ahead for every conversation, and there’s a flare of envy in Max’s chest - and says, “The sky.”

When Max affects confusion (he _is_ confused) Layne explains, “Like, right now, it’s bright as anything, but at night, you can see all of the stars from out here. It’s _way_ different from our old apartment - the balcony was tiny, and the light pollution was a downer.”

Max nods, like he understands. 

“Have you noticed all the _light_ everywhere, too? Saints, there’s barely any shadows here, I had to practice the stretching sigil for ages before I could manage even this much,” Layne gestures to the staircase. Momentarily hesitant and cautious, they say, “You could try it sometime. I could help you learn it.”

Layne’s sincerity, the way they’re trying to reach out, is almost enough to cover the bitter twist of Max’s stomach at the word. ‘Sigil.’ Like the things have ever helped him _._

“That’s a generous offer,” he replies, “I appreciate it.”

Max might sound contrite, but nobody would be able to say he’d been uncourteous. And then he wonders - who _would_ say anything if he were? He immediately thinks _Rune,_ but memories that he cannot forget, of the man being kind, and genuine, and patient, overshadow it. Max doesn’t know whether to feel embarrassed at how he’s forced himself to act politely here, or relieved.

On one hand, Layne’s given him no reason for dislike. On the other, he probably won’t be… punished if he did act out. 

Max is still puzzling out his own behaviour when Layne asks, “So what do _you_ like about this place?”

“Hm?”

“The Sun Palace. Same question, back at you, bro,” they say, grinning at the pun. 

Because Max doesn’t trust his instincts during conversation, he goes with the truth, not thinking much about it. “I like the quiet.”

Layne pauses for a moment. “Is it because you’re fae?” 

The question is so unexpected Max gapes at them. “What?”

“You’re… fae, right? I kind of figured,” Layne gestures to their face, vaguely, which Max doesn’t understand, but assumes it’s something to do with features/skin, “and Queenie mentions it, sometimes.”

Max’s pulse has slowed to normal, at first accidentally, but now, because Layne’s a _medic,_ and they’d know what Max was doing anyway. Also, he’s confused by the direction their conversation is taking. “Yeah?”

“I also interned with a girl who I’m pretty sure was fae, and she had these noise cancelling headphones? Because of all the audio input, I guess. I asked her about it once, she said that it just helped her concentrate.” At Max’s bewildered look, Layne gestures hastily with their hands, “Obviously, I’m not saying that _all_ fae have the same physiology, I’m just - wow, okay, I just heard myself speak, you totally don’t have to answer, that sounded pretty rude.”

“No, it’s fine,” Max says, and surprises himself by actually meaning it. “It’s… uh, maybe it’s because of that? The whole hearing thing is worse for kids. They’ve got more trouble controlling how much they can hear at a time.”

Layne nods, though they smile as well. Max realises it’s probably because he seems comfortable now, and wonders idly if the scion brought up the topic purely to give Max some common ground for conversation.

“So you’ve like, completely mastered the audio input thing?”

Max shrugs. “More or less. Back when, uh, I lived at, uh,” _shit,_ “my old court, the walls were pretty thin, so we learnt how to control it pretty quickly.”

Saints, why did he have to bring that up? Comfort was not worth the lack of filter, at all. But Layne just snorts. “Guess the intern just grew up spoiled, with soundproof walls. Kids these days, you know? No sense of how the real world works.”

Max hums in agreement, mouth curling upward in return. “It gets easier with time.”

Layne nods. “Easier, sure. But it’s always nice having some peace and quiet, isn’t it?”

The scion leans backward, relaxing into the shadows they’d made around the staircase. The only sounds in the air are insects far off in the gardens, and the odd bird, and the surprising thing is that Max finds himself almost at ease. Layne’s words aren’t just pleasantries - Max reminds himself that from all the people in Rune’s court, Layne probably understands best what it feels like to… be here. Having made mistakes, almost being _owned,_ they’re not things to commiserate over (Max is sure the scion would want to forget, just like he would) but they seem to be on a similar wavelength.

It’s not trust, or friendship. (Max barely knows what those _are._ Matthias has never known.)

“Yeah,” Max says, “I suppose.”

But it’s something.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop a comment, kudos, DEFINITELY subscribe (we've got a nice long way to go boys) and have a great day!


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